Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor –

ARTS SA’s 2019-20 Season is varied and interesting. How do you choose what you’ll be presenting?
We have an ongoing conversation with the staff and the board and our subscribers about the selection of artists to present, and that conversation is in the context of us not wanting to replicate what others in the city are doing. We are not different just for the sake of being different. We seek different types of performers who can offer excellence of experience to the community. And we seek artistic diversity. We are completely comfortable engaging artists from China or Japan, or Africa, and all regions of the world. These are usually artists and ensembles who are on a tour of the U.S., so we work with their American tour management.

 I make the final decisions. And it’s my responsibility to deal with the many variables that are involved in these engagements.

What kind of shows draw the largest crowds?
Our largest audience is for “The Nutcracker”; 8-10 thousand people attend “The Nutcracker” performances every year. Yo-Yo Ma’s concert in April was sold out and it sold out rather quickly. The Spanish Harlem Orchestra is popular here; we presented them four times. Big spectacles draw a lot of people but they are also more expensive to produce.

Which shows in the upcoming season are you personally looking forward to?
I am looking forward to hearing the Kingdom Choir from London, and also, Twelfth Night to be performed by actors of the London stage. We are working with the English Department at UTSA on that. 
Another performance I am excited about is Farruquito’s; it will be a big flashy flamenco production. His reputation is huge.

How did you get into arts management?
I think it was an emotional decision more than a logical one. My mother wanted me to be an electrical engineer. But I have always loved the magical interface between performers and the audience. It’s unique. Arts administrators make that possible. From the days that I would set-up music stands and chairs for orchestras to planning what we plan now, I’ve always enjoyed that process.

What is the most challenging part of your job?
Generating the revenue necessary to carry out this work. For the most part we present artists who are not familiar to San Antonians. We have to work hard to get the audience to trust us and to get excited about new experiences. Not everything we do is new but it is often new to San Antonio. Why would a thousand people come to see Japanese drummers? When you see it, it’s thrilling but how do you convince people to come and experience them?

Do you attend plays, concerts or dance shows produced by San Antonio companies?
We (he and his wife) love theater so we go regularly to the Classic Theater for plays and the Public Theater to see the musicals.

You have lived in San Antonio a long time now. If you were the city mayor, what would be your top priority?
I think transportation is difficult here. Having been in Tampa recently and also in Houston, I saw that mass transportation is a much larger part of everyone’s life there. And in cities like Boston, you can take the subway everywhere, inexpensively. That makes the city more livable for more people and the city is cleaner as a result of that. The other issue is homelessness. Even though it’s pretty well managed here, I see it increasing, and I am concerned about that.

If you could visit any place in the world, where would you like to go?
Africa. But we have a particular affection for the United Kingdom, especially Wales. Wales is beautiful, the climate is moderate and the people are very warm, no ostentation. Everything is modest.

What are your happiest memories from childhood?
There’s a moment that I think about a lot. I was probably ten years old – I open the front door (We grew up in Southern Illinois), the air is beautiful, you are a kid and you don’t have any worries and you can just go out into the world to see and discover. I also remember arriving at summer camp, when I was 12, about enjoying summer camp and thinking that my whole life is ahead of me.

Did you think you would become an engineer?
Yes, I was always interested in science. Nikola Tesla was one of my childhood heroes. In junior high I won the science fair for building a Tesla coil. But I never acquired the joy of mathematics, and mathematics was required to do science. I was also into music from a young age. The first record I ever owned was (William) Steinberg conducting the Cleveland Orchestra in Wagner’s overtures. I still remember listening to that. As a child I played clarinet. Then in high school I was in band. So, when time for college came, I thought I would either focus on music or languages. At that time, it was much easier to get a scholarship in music than in languages, so I said, fine. I played the bassoon and pursued a degree in performance. (He later studied with Sherman Walt at Boston University and, following graduation, played bassoon in the Coast Guard band for four years. After leaving the military he got a job managing an orchestra in New London, Conn., launching his career in arts management.)

You have been married to Judi for over 40 years? As you indicated, that’s a rarity in the performing arts world. How did you two make it work?
First off: Don’t get divorced! What helped is that we never wanted to be divorced from each other at the same time, so while one person was angry the other tried to resolve the problem. I don’t want to say that is has always been fun. Any two humans must constantly compromise, negotiate and use diplomacy. Any team requires that. We found ways to make things work.

 What moral values do you think are the most important in both professional and personal life?
Loyalty, taking responsibility for one’s actions and the outcomes of those actions, and fairness. One of my duties here is to manage the environment in which people work. Do they have the tools they need? Are the expectations appropriate? Are they compensated fairly? For 20 years I was the general manager of the symphony in Fort Worth which entails a lot of different responsibilities. But as long as you seek to be fair, you’ll end up going in the right direction.

Another issue is equity vs. equality. I learned a lot about it from the city employees I have associated with. Giving each person a dollar would be equality, but someone may need more than someone else. We face this issue in what we do. We bring top performers, like Yoyo Ma, and it’s often very expensive to bring them here. So, if I said, every ticket is $100, that would be equality (but would exclude a lot of people). There are people in the community who do not have the resources to pay $100 but deserve access. We made it possible for 400 kids and military family members from the community to attend Ma’s concert for free.

In your career you have worked with some very accomplished artists, a few geniuses perhaps. What insights can you share about these exceptional individuals?
To the degree that the brain of such an individual is engaged in creative work, chances are that there would a deficit in other areas of personality and character. It may not be always the rule but it’s not surprising that Einstein was a great genius in physics but other parts of his personality were not so great. Nikola Tesla was a towering genius but he was terrible at finances and died a pauper. This is also true in the arts, with choreographers, composers and others. I had the opportunity to work with Nicola Roscigno, the music director and co-founder of the Dallas Opera. He didn’t need the score; he didn’t need any papers. He knew exactly where the soprano was supposed to be standing at any point and where each singer should join in, etc. The rest of his life was very carefully controlled and limited, so that he could dedicate himself to his artistic work. When I worked with him, I was the director of marketing and he thought that my work was like selling sausages. He didn’t understand the value of marketing.

I’ve had the opportunity to work twice with Yo-Yo Ma. I believe that his “genius,” if you will, what makes him special, is the sum of his musical ability, his warm and giving personality and his genuine desire to actively use creativity – all forms of art – to bring people together.  When we engaged him to perform in San Antonio this past April, the conditions were that there would be a day of music and a “Day of Action.”  He wanted this Day of Action to be spent on the border between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.  I’m glad that we and our supporters here were able to make that possible.  This performance and day of action in Texas was part of Yo-Yo’s “Bach Project.”  During the concert, he performed the complete sequence of Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello, more than two hours of music, unaccompanied, from memory.  It was fun to help arrange the “surprise” encore for the concert with Yo-Yo and our Flaco Jimenez, “Las Golondrinas.”